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Interesting data on relative representation....

Interesting data I found regarding voters per House representative. It turns out that the "book-ends" of the structure are Montana and Rhode Island, one very rural/conservative, and one very liberal/urban/suburban. While the argument is often put forth that the smaller, rural states are over-represented, the actual data appears to show otherwise. Rhode Island has two representatives for just over 1,000,000 voters, while Montana only has one rep for well over 900,000. This means that every vote cast in Rhode Island counts nearly double compared to the votes from Montana.

Sounds like the Montana conservatives are being given the short end of the stick, while the Rhode Island liberals get double their votes' worth.

[California, BTW, is slightly over-represented, with 704,000 voters per rep, vs, the national average of 712,000.]

Thoughts?

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency." ------------------ Pope John Paul II

Is anyone arguing that conservatives are over-represented due to district sizing? I thought it was just about how the lines were drawn.

Obviously, it's going to be an issue in small states as to where-do-you-draw-the-line between whether they qualify for an additional district or not and where do you take it from? As California shows, the big states are going to be able to divvy it up pretty fairly.

The Wyoming Rule is interesting and make sense. I had never heard of it before. Personally, I think we need much more representation. 700,000 per rep is NOT what the founders were thinking when they first set things up. Of course there would be all sorts of problems with the size of the Capitol building and such, but we should probably have at least twice as many Reps, IMO.

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. 700,000 per rep is NOT what the founders were thinking when they first set things up.

Agreed.

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency." ------------------ Pope John Paul II

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Did some quick and rough math: if the 21 smallest Republican states vote as a block in the Senate (as they often do), that means that the representatives of 20% of the population can effectively veto any federal legislation under current Senate filibuster rules. I think this is roughly accurate, it would take me a couple of hours to figure it out with more precision.

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Did some quick and rough math: if the 21 smallest Republican states vote as a block in the Senate (as they often do), that means that the representatives of 20% of the population can effectively veto any federal legislation under current Senate filibuster rules. I think this is roughly accurate, it would take me a couple of hours to figure it out with more precision.

The same is true for the smallest 21 Democrat states, right?

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency." ------------------ Pope John Paul II

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Something else interesting to note: While Trump did not gain a popular vote majority, the House Republicans did, by roughly 1.4 million votes. (Senate popular vote is not directly comparable since only 1/3 of the seats were up for a vote).

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency." ------------------ Pope John Paul II

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Something else interesting to note: While Trump did not gain a popular vote majority, the House Republicans did, by roughly 1.4 million votes. (Senate popular vote is not directly comparable since only 1/3 of the seats were up for a vote).

Something else interesting to note: While Trump did not gain a popular vote majority, the House Republicans did, by roughly 1.4 million votes. (Senate popular vote is not directly comparable since only 1/3 of the seats were up for a vote).

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No, not at all. I think the smallest 21 Democrat states represent a much larger percentage of the overall population than the smallest 21 Republican states. I'll try to figure it out later today if I have time.